Noodle-icious! Part 1

Just because something might be simple comfort food doesn’t mean you can’t gourmet it up.  Nay, gourmet your ass off!

Half of the time I ask the hubster what he’d like for dinner the answer I get is “Something pasta-ey”.  I enjoy pasta, but like most things in my life I burn out on it quickly and need variety.  I know for many people a pasta dish would involve some sort of tomato based sauce and a dried store bought noodle.  Fine and dandy in a pinch, I suppose.

I don’t roll that way.

Can’t say I ever really have. 

One of the best birthday presents I ever got as a teen was a hand-crank pasta machine.  What teenage boy DOESN’T get giddy at the idea of making a fresh fettuccine, am I right?  As you can tell I was often alone in my youth.  There’s another related story to my childhood loneliness which involves digging up bones to use for scrimshaw, but that’s another thing altogether.

Anyways, here’s another two part post.  The first being for the homemade pasta, and since I’m so nice, I won’t begrudge those who only have time for dried pasta.  In which case, just tune in again Sunday for the second recipe (and know that your store bought noodles are inferior).  This one will be for a basic sauce, which will be the basis for a schwack of different saucy options.

Basic pasta (requires a pasta machine, or a rolling pin and a level of patience I don’t suspect many people have)

Okay, so this is a pretty bare-bones version of homemade pasta.  It makes enough for 1-2 people so double, triple, quadruple, etc as necessary

Cat in background optional, but recommended

·      1 cup flour

·      1 egg

·      ½ tsp salt

·      water.  Generally up to about 2 Tbsp, but flour is a finicky little thing and may require more or less depending on the current humidity in your kitchen, or even the idiosyncrasies of the particular batch of flour you’re using.

Mound the flour on a large cutting board, or clean countertop, and stir in the salt (you could use a bowl, but it’s not half as much fun, and you’ll have to transfer it to a flat surface eventually, anyway).  Make a well in the center and crack your egg into the well.  

With a fork, gently beat the egg, pulling in a little bit of the flour as you do so.  You can also pre-beat the egg in a bowl and just pour it into the well, but again, where’s the fun in that?  Live dangerously.  …yes, I’m still often alone.

You can continue using the fork to pull in the remaining flour, but getting in there with your hands is preferable.  Work in the remaining flour until you have a stiff dough, adding water if required.  Continue to knead the dough until it is smooth.

Generally, I let the dough rest at this point, wrapped and popped into the fridge for about an hour.  I’m a bit of a purist when it comes to believing that the gluten needs to rest in order for it to be easier to work with.  Although, time limitations often trump my puritan pasta paranoia, and in that case I skip the resting time.

 Use a sharp knife to slice about a fingers-width of pasta off the ball.  Have extra flour on hand to lightly dust the sheets of pasta as you roll it out. Start at the largest setting and roll the slice through.  Adjust the rollers to the next smallest setting and pass through again.  Continue this process until you end up with your desired thickness of pasta.  I usually stop one setting before the thinnest setting.  Partially because I like the little bit of thickness to the noodle, and also in part due to the fact that the whole task starts to seem daunting to me at this point (particularly if I’m doing a large batch of pasta) and I’m looking to cut out any unnecessary steps.

When you have a sheet of pasta all you need to do is give it a good dusting of flour, roll it up and slice into whatever width of noodle you want.  Yeah, this is a bit more rustic, but it’s YOUR rustic.  Or if you have the fettuccine or spaghetti attachments you can roll it through there and let it cut the noodles for you.

Needless to say you would repeat this process, slicing off a slab of dough and rolling them out, and cutting as you want.

If you plan to use them immediately, just make sure there’s ample flour dusted on the noodles to keep them from sticking together.  If not, you’ll want to hang them to dry.  Trust me, this can be an exercise in ingenuity.  You’d be amazed at how many surfaces in the house can be ideal pasta drying racks.  Shower curtains, chair backs, clothes hangers, etc.  Hygenic?  No.  Effective?  Hell yes!

These noodles only take a couple minutes to cook, so don’t throw them in a pot of boiling water and assume the same 8-12 minutes of down time which store bought pasta affords.

I could eat these by the bowl with little other sauce than a pat of butter melted onto them.  Mind you I could also just eat a bowl of melted butter and be satisfied, so you I’ll let you be the judge.  See you Sunday!